Proposal for a Council Decision on a European Union position concerning the Rules of Procedure of the EPA Committee, the Customs Cooperation Committee and the Joint Development Committee provided for by the Interim Agreement establishing a framework for an Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States, on the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, on the other part

The Interim Agreement establishing a framework for an Economic Partnership Agreement (referred to as the 'Interim EPA') between the Eastern and Southern Africa States (ESA), on the one part, and the European Community and its Member States on the other part was signed on 29 August 2009 and has been provisionally applied since 14 May 2012.

Article 64 of the Agreement establishes an EPA Committee which shall be responsible for the administration of the Agreement and for the fulfilment of any of the tasks mentioned therein.

The EPA Committee shall be assisted in the performance of its duties by the Customs Cooperation Committee, which is established in accordance with the Article 41 of the Protocol 1 of the Agreement, and the Joint Development Committee, which is established in accordance with the Article 52 of the Agreement.

The obligation to establish the Rules of Procedure is set up in the Interim EPA. All Parties to the Agreement were consulted and the text of the Rules of Procedure was agreed and endorsed ad referendum with the four Signatory ESA States (Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Zimbabwe) at the inaugural meeting of the EPA Committee in October 2012.

The proposal includes a draft Council Decision based on Article 218(9) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to establish a European Union position. Similar decisions have been adopted in the past to adopt the procedural rules of EPAs.

This Council Decision includes as an annex a draft Decision to be taken by the EPA Committee in 2013. The latter includes 3 annexes that cover, respectively, the rules of procedure of the EPA Committee, of the Customs Cooperation Committee, of the Joint Development Committee. All these rules were agreed and endorsed ad referendum with the four Signatory ESA States at the inaugural meeting of the EPA Committee in October 2012.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)86: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:086:FIN

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